We are pleasantly surprised! We’ve heard from a number of our readers asking why we haven’t published anything for so long a time. Sincere thanks for your enquiries and your interest in our work. We’re immensely pleased that you’ve let us know once again that we’ve got a devoted public.

The basic concept underlying the fintech startup Single was the idea of offering bank customers a highly attractive complex of financial services. Along with online banking, the services were to include online reservations and travel planning, a 24-hour concierge service and a unique loyalty programme.

When the Soviet Union dissolved at the beginning of the 1990s, throughout the new Russia thousands of banks sprang up virtually overnight. Most of them were underfinanced and, as a result, quickly disappeared. B&N Bank was among the early ones to open its doors and remains in the top 2 or 3% of Russian banks up to the present day.

The astounding rise of the world’s fintech market has generated a barrage of comments regarding the effect of fintech on the banking industry. The general opinion is that the constant progress of fintech will one day spell the end of the banking system as we know it. Personally, I have not paid much attention to such comments when they appear on Twitter and Facebook. On the other hand, many influential consulting firms have recently joined in and their opinion is worth listening to.

At long last we’ve got round to writing about one of our earlier projects dealing with technical solutions for the banking sector. This one for OpenWay Group turned out to be considerably more complex and multifaceted than originally expected.

By 2008 Russian banks had begun to sense that the new electronic payment services and micropayment systems (EPS) were posing a serious competitive threat in a field long monopolised by banks. As the new payment services offered the general public an extremely user-friendly system, they quickly came to garner a large chunk of the market for financial transactions. These included people sending money to each other for a variety of reasons, buying merchandise from online stores and paying for utilities and other services.

We’re pleased to announce our first case-study at a new version of our web-site. This is our complex solution for Nadra Bank of Kiev which included an internet portal, online banking and mobile banking.

In both Soviet and post-Soviet times, bank cards were a thing of wonderment to the average Russian. Getting one’s wages or making purchases by using a plastic card, whether a credit card or a debit card, was nearly unheard of.

Ultimately, of course, Softwear Finance designs and launches fintech solutions. We started out in 2009 and have enjoyed considerable success ever since. This page is the first in our blog in English as we approach our ambitious goal of reaching out to global markets. At the same time, we’d like to share with our readers some of the remarkable experiences we’ve had in the design of fintech solutions.